Wednesday, September 26, 2012

What Does the Future of HR Tech Look Like?

For most companies, the resume is unavoidable. It allows recruiters to compare applicants apples to apples, and thus quickly filter out the bad ones.

But for the tech field, the resume is increasingly irrelevant. Techies want to see your actual work, not bullet points that describe it. They want to see websites you’ve designed or developed, blog posts you’ve written, videos you’ve produced, SEO campaigns you’ve managed, and so on.

Sure, a client will have made changes to a site that made it worse, just as an editor will have tampered with something you’ve written. But to HR, this is actually helpful: unlike a resume, which almost always is embellished, your final work product shows not only your ability to deliver the raw goods, but also your ability to shepherd your work through the gauntlet of colleagues, bosses, and clients. Live projects reveal what you’re capable of both producing and convincing others to support.

In short, “Show me the work,” rather than “Show me the resume,” will be the tech recruiter’s mantra.